no original difference betwixt the right and the left hand: cuftom however has eftablished a difference, fo as to make it aukward and disagreeable to use the left where the right is commonly used. The various colours, though they affect us differently, are all of them agreeable in their purity. But custom has regulated this matter in another manner: a black fkin upon a human creature, is to us disagreeable; and a white fkin probably not lefs fo to a negro. Thus things originally indifferent, become agreeable or disagreeable by the force of custom. Nor ought this to be furprising after the dif covery made above, that the original agreeableness or disagreeableness of an object, is, by the influence of cuftom, often converted into the oppofite quality.

Concerning now thofe matters of tafte where there is naturally a preference of one thing before another; it is certain, in the first place, that our faint and more delicate feelings are readily fufceptible of a bias from cuftom; and therefore that it is no proof of a defective tafte, to find these in fome meafure under the government of cuftom.

Drefs,

Drefs, and the modes of external behaviour, are juftly regulated by cuftom in every country. The deep red or vermilion with which the ladies in France cover their cheeks, appears to them beautiful in spite of nature; and ftrangers cannot altogether be juftified in condemning this practice, confidering the lawful authority of custom, or of the fashion, as it is called. It is told of the people who inhabit the fkirts of the Alps facing the north, that the fwelling they univerfally have in the neck is to them agreeable. So far has cuftom power to change the nature of things, and to make an object originally disagreeable take on an oppofite appearance.

But as to the emotions of propriety and impropriety, and in general as to all emotions involving the sense of right or wrong, custom has little authority, and ought to have none at all. Emotions of this kind, being qualified with the consciousness of duty, take naturally place of every other feeling; and it argues a shameful weakness or degeneracy of mind, to find them in any cafe fo

far fubdued as to fubmit to custom.

Thefe

These few hints may enable us to judge in fome measure of foreign manners, whether exhibited by foreign writers or our own. A comparison betwixt the ancients and the moderns, was fome time ago a favourite fubject. Those who declared for the former, thought it a fufficient juftification of ancient manners, that they were fupported by the authority of custom. Their antagonifts, on the other hand, refufing fubmiffion to custom as a ftandard of tafte, condemned ancient manners in feveral inftances as irrational. In this controverfy, an appeal being made to different principles, without the flightest attempt on either fide to eftablish a common standard, the dispute could have no end. The hints above given tend to establish a standard, for judging how far the lawful authority of cuftom may be extended, and within what limits it ought to be confined. For the fake of illuftration, we shall apply this standard in a few inftan

ces.

Human facrifices, the cruelleft effect of blind and groveling fuperftition, wore gradually out of use by the prevalence of rea

fon

fon and humanity. In the days of Sophocles and Euripides, the traces of this favage practice were still recent; and the Athe nians, through the prevalence of custom, could without disgust suffer human facrifices to be represented in their theatre. The Iphigenia of Euripides is a proof of this fact. But a human facrifice, being altogether inconfiftent with modern manners, as producing horror instead of pity, cannot with any propriety be introduced upon a modern stage. I must therefore condemn the Iphigenia of Racine, which, instead of the tender and sympathetic paffions, fubftitutes disgust and horror. But this is not all. Another objection occurs against every fable that deviates fo remarkably from improved notions and fentiments. If it fhould even command our belief, by the authority of genuine history, its fictitious and unnatural appearance, however, would prevent its taking fuch hold of the mind as to produce a perception of reality*. A human facrifice is fo unnatural, and to us fo improbable,

* See chap. 2. part 1. fect. 6.

that

that few will be affected with the reprefentation of it more than with a fairy tale. The objection first mentioned ftrikes alfo against the Phedra of this author. The queen's paffion for her stepfon, being unnatural and beyond all bounds, creates averfion and horror rather than compaffion. The author in his preface obferves, that the queen's paffion, however unnatural, was the effect of destiny and the wrath of the gods; and he puts the fame excufe in her own mouth. But what is the wrath of a heathen god to us Christians? We acknowledge no defti ny in paffion; and if love be unnatural, it never can be relifhed. A fuppofition, like what our author lays hold of, may possibly cover flight improprieties; but it will ne ver engage 'our fympathy for what appears to us frantic or extravagant.

Neither can I relish the catastrophe of this tragedy. A man of tafte may peruse, without difguft, a Grecian performance defcribing a fea-monster sent by Neptune to destroy Hippolytus. He confiders, that such a story might agree with the religious creed of Greece; and, entering into ancient opiVOL. II.

P

nions,